Thursday, December 13, 2012

My Heuchera collection did not do quite as bad this year as a great deal of my perennials with the drought and extreme heat we've had in Ohio. The hardest hit by the drought were the smaller immature ones, although all had some burned leaves, some more than others.

Heuchera Silver Scrolls and Heuchera Blackout. Silver Scrolls is absolutely a beautiful Coral Bells with it's very unique leaves. It's a little smaller Coral Bells than the others I have so if placing a group of varieties, this would be one towards the front. Love it. Blackout has very dark leaves and they seem to stay dark. So far it is handling itself here well.

Heuchera Prince and Heuchera Can Can. Love them both, they both do extremely well in my area and are evergreen and handled this year's drought and extreme heat in full sun.

Heuchera Plum Pudding and Heuchera Beaujolais. Plum Pudding is beautiful. Hard to tell from the photo but the leaves have very unique markings, love it. Beaujolias so far has done really well in this extreme heat and drought and both have been evergreen for me here.

Heuchera Midnight Rose and Heuchera Palace Purple. Midnight Rose is one of the most beautiful Coral Bells and handles horrible weather and is evergreen so far here. Palace Purple has been around from the early beginnings of the colored Coral Bells. It's prime looks are in the Spring, but I find it suffers in full sun more than most of the ones I have.

Heuchera Melting Fire and Heuchera Volcano. Melting Fire is one of my very favorites and handles all the horrible weather it's been put through this year. Volcano is still young but so far is doing well and both are evergreen for me.

Heuchera Georgia Peach and Heuchera Stormy Seas. Love both of these, both have handled the horrible weather this year and still look great. Both are evergreen for me.

Heuchera Dark Secret and Heuchera Frosted Violet. I love both of these, especially Dark Secret which handles all weather even the drought. Frosted Violet really is a very pretty purple. Both are evergreen for me.

Heuchera Caramel and Heuchera Tiramisu. Caramel is my favorite gold and tolerates a lot, absolutely love this Coral Bells. Tiramisu is a beautiful plant but it has had a very difficult time in full sun, hence it's small size after a few years. It's in a new location for a month now, still full sun, but not quite as intense so I am hoping it will do better next year where I moved it to. Both are evergreen for me.

Heuchera Bressingham and Heuchera Snow Angel. Both are green but such lovely plants. Bressingham's blooms are so eye catching, you notice them across the yard. Snow Angel is heavily variegated with white, although this particular photo did not catch it very well. Will try for a better one next year. Very pretty plant. Both are evergeen for me.

Heuchera Binoache and Heuchera Brown Sugar are both new to me this year. One of the important things I've noticed about Coral Bells is that you have better luck with at least a quart size plant. Anything smaller has too much of a chance of burning up over the summer with the stress of being new and not having enough leaves to help itself along. With a larger plant, if the top leaves burn up as they were all doing this year to some extent with our drought and extreme heat, the burned up leaves are there to protect the lower leaves and the plant will survive. Hoping they are also evergreen.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Acer palumatum Fireglow has to be one of the best Japanese Maples to own. Does great in full sun here in zone 6 and even though everything is cut back except for the Mums and the Hosta, this garden still looks good with the JM and the Pinus s. Glauca Nana and Mums, even though the Hosta are pretty much gone for the year. Unfortunately we are technically still in drought and things just did not give much Fall color this year. I kept waiting for it to but it started coloring and went straight to leaf drop before things finished coloring.

The back line showing the lovely Mums and the Japanese Maple, Acer palmatum Crimsom Queen.

The burgundy Mums seem outstanding in color this year. Maybe it's just the fact that the summer was so bland with everything burned up.

My beautiful Paperbark Maple, Acer griseum Paperbark. It started turning red and unfortunately the leaves started dropping before it was finished. I just love the bark on this tree.

My small Picea pungens Glauca Globosa with the pink Mum. I will probably add another pink Mum here. Since there are a few small Heuchera here I'm not sure until Spring if I'll have room and decided to wait until then to make a decision on it.

The Picea abies Reflexa with the Viburnum Autumn Jazz doing a little Fall color. Thanks for stopping by. Next month is a post about my Heuchera.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

With Fall here it's time for the cleanup that needs done. Until last weekend the weather had been quite nice and I had only cut back the Iris and Daylilies. This last week I started cutting back a few more things. I'm trying something new with my Hosta. I've always cut back in the fall. This year I'm going to let them go to mush and then pull up the mess. It has been mentioned that you get some slug eggs that way. So we'll see how this goes.

The Japanese Maple is Fireglow. I love the dark burgundy color of this tree. This is the area that I took out more than half a bed. Most of the Hosta that were here are now potted and will be part of my secret garden, which I'm hoping I have no problem with them surviving the Winter in pots. I left a few that were there and moved in a few to the spots of ones I was taking out. The Pinus s. Glauca Nana and Mums remained also. I was going to take all of this area out, but I was afraid I would lose the Japanese Maple and left this small area.

This was the home of my Echinacea and Daisies. I hated losing the whole bed which looked so lovely but it was time to reduce my load. Because of leaving the Japanese area above and to keep this area an even grass path, I had to fill this part in with the pavers so I just made it a little patio area. You can see the grass seed filling in now in part of the area that I took out. I did keep a few small clumps of the Echinacea and transplanted them elsewhere in the yard and one small clump of Daisies which were also transplanted elsewhere. Most of the rest was given away. You can see most of the areas around this have already been cut back for Winter.

Ninebark with Salvia Rose Sensation. Should have divided this past Spring, so hopefully it's still there in the Spring that it can be done then.

Several of the Salvias at the bottom of the yard and reblooming now for their last show this year. You can see some of the Burgundy Mums also.

Hydrangea Pinky Winky changing to it's pink color. I've been very happy with this Hydrangea and in fact have two of them, one on each side of the yard. They do extremely well in full sun.

A container of Sedum variegated. This is a very showy Sedum and does extremely well in a container which I don't protect at all in my zone.

Sedum Autumn Joy in bloom. Didn't get photos of the couple other varieties I have. Sedum does well no matter the weather and is one of the things that I did keep quite a bit of, even though I gave away a lot of perennials this year.

Well as always you can count of the Double Knockout Roses to bloom. Even with the drought and extreme heat of this Summer, these continued to bloom for me. In front of it is Lavander which does extremely well in heat. Just make sure you provide Lavendar with good drainage.

As with the Knockout, this beautiful Rose Apricot Drift just kept on blooming for me. It has Sedums on each side of it. Both of those will be transplanted next year.

This No ID Rose out of my neighbors yard and potted in her memory did ok this year also and has some new buds here.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

The gardening season has been the worst I recall for most of us in the country. The heat and drought just did not give us a break here. I lost lots of plants and the ones that are here did not do well. My Hydrangeas did not bloom as well as normal, I believe most of their buds just burnt up. I'm hoping next year is an improvement and I've just been glad for what I do have.

Hydrangea Pinky Winky. I love this Hydrangea. Nice big blooms this year so I expect it to get better as it matures.

Hydrangea Vanilla Strawberry. Love this one. Last year was the first blooms and I got I believe 3 on it. Still not mature but there are blooms everywhere. It's normally not this sparse of leaves but the heat and drought took it's toll on most of my Hydrangea and it lost most it's leaves, but it still put out lots of blooms.

Hydrangea Limelight. Thankfully can live through most anything. It didn't grow this year, but then nothing else did either. The blooms are smaller than normal but it does have them.

Hydrangea TarDiva. This one probably looks the worst for blooms. I have 2 and this one has the most blooms but they are very little.

Hydrangea Quickfire. In July and August going through it's changes of color. Unfortunately in this weird year, Quickfire started blooming in MAY, and the buds and blooms finally burnt up before we headed into fall.

The Caryopteris Blue Mist Shrub, in the Spirea family of shrubs is blooming well this year.

The burgundy Mums are doing ok as a rule, but a couple are pretty burnt up also.

Of course the trustworthy Yarrow. It grows and even blooms no matter the weather.

I've taken out almost 2 full garden beds this year. Between whirlygigs and droughts it's become a little much. Let's see if I regret this, although I do to some extent, I know it will be a little easier to take care of next year.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The drought and extreme temperatures usually in the 90's and 100's has really taken it's toll on my gardens. I thought I would show some of my Hemerocallis or commonly known as Daylilies which thankfully are dependable no matter what, although foliage has sure been burning up. I've lost a lot of plants this year and a lot of other plants have been dug up, potted and put in shade in hopes of saving some things. I have a lot of spaces empty because of this.

Wineberry Candy is a beautiful combination of contrasting colors.

Daylily Austintatious. This is a constant rebloomer. Blooms were done for and within a couple weeks it was already reblooming.

Santa's Little Helper. Very bright colors and did quite a bit of blooming this year.

Nancy Ligon is a lovely delicate blend of color that always looks good.

Plum Perfect is one that sends up lots of blooms and continues to do so for about a month.

An heirloom Daylily Kwanzo. The colors are outstanding and one of my favorites.

Daylily Bordello Queen closeup of this pretty little bloom.

Woodside Rhapsody a very pretty dark color that holds the color without fading.

Allegheny Sunset is such a beautiful large bloom and another one that always looks good.

Might as well throw in a picture of the Lily trees growing here. Not as tall as usual with the lack of water this Spring, but still lovely.

Friday, July 13, 2012

The family garden is still looking decent even with the constant 90's and some days over 100, but it's taking it's toll. These are photos from a couple weeks ago. Afraid the last couple weeks with too many days in the 100's has really ruined my gardens for the year and I most likely won't have much to post after this.

The Echinacea, Daisies and Coreopsis are all blooming in the heat which they tend to handle much better than a lot of other perennials.

The backline is surviving but the extreme heat hit so early this year that I haven't had any significant growth on my flowering shrubs which is a big disappointment as I wait for them to grow up. Most of the Hydrangea are blooming and others have buds that are opening up now.

The back corner with the Viburnum Autumn Jazz is through blooming and setting up the berries for winter. No further blooms on my Clematis there so hoping again that this has not totally burned up this year as the second one is gone.

The shed garden was still holding on but again the heat has taken it's toll on everything in the last couple of weeks.

Daylily Ruby Spider. One of my favorite Daylilies as it's such an eye catcher.

Daylily Stella De Oro. Love how much she reblooms here with her bright yellow cheery color.

Daylily Bordello Queen is one of my first Daylily bloomers each season and always so elegant and soft.